The U.S. Women's Soccer Team Just Took a Major Step in Their Fight for Salary Equality

The world champs are only paid 40% as much as the men.

The members of the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNT) are, by definition, ballers. You may remember them winning the World Cup in 2015…and in 1999…and in 1991 (okay, maybe you don't remember that one, but you know about it). In fact, the USWNT has finished in the top three in all seven of the FIFA Women's World Cups.

But just because they’re winning literally all over the place doesn’t mean that they’re immune to something women all over the U.S. deal with — the gender pay gap. That’s why, on Wednesday, five members of the team: Carli Lloyd, Megan Rapinoe, Rebecca Sauerbrunn, Hope Solo, and Alex Morgan, filed a complaint on behalf of the whole team with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to request an investigation into the pay disparity in the U.S. Soccer Federation.

"The numbers speak for themselves," Hope said in a statement. “We are the best in the world, have three World Cup Championships, four Olympic Championships, and the USMNT get paid more to just show up, than we get paid to win major championships."

According to the players’ attorney, the women’s national team members make only 40% of what the men’s national team members do. Just a reminder: in 2014, the USMNT got knocked out by Belgium in the World Cup’s round of 16. In 2015, the women won the World Cup.

The stipulations of their pay, which you can see here complete with a comparison to what the guys are making, were agreed upon in previous contracts. But with the team’s collective bargaining agreement reportedly up or invalid (a battle the team has been fighting with U.S. Soccer for a few years now) U.S. Soccer is allegedly not even considering paying the women’s team equal to the men as they go into new negotiations.

This morning, U.S. Soccer released a statement saying, in part, "While we have not seen this complaint and can’t comment on the specifics of it, we are disappointed about this action. We have been a world leader in women’s soccer and are proud of the commitment we have made to building the women’s game in the United States over the past 30 years."

Though this has been an issue for quite a while, the players decided that now was the right time to act. "I think that we've proven our worth over the years,” Carli said on Today. “Just coming off of a World Cup win, the pay disparity between the men and women is just too large. And we want to continue to fight.”

Just this past summer, Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy addressed soccer's pay gap in Congress, introducing a resolution that called on the sport's international governing body, FIFA, to pay men and women equally. When the women won the 2015 World Cup, they received only $2 million, compared to 2014's men's winners Germany who took home $35 million, and the U.S. men, who finished in the top 16 and received $9 million. The resolution was blocked but it did draw attention to the outrageous way women in sports are devalued.

And just to make it clear, this isn't an issue of popularity or the women's team making U.S. soccer less money than the men. As Deadspin reports, U.S. Soccer expects the USWNT's international games to pull in more than the USMNT's this year — and next year. Plus, the women's 2015 World Cup championship game was the most-watched soccer match in U.S. History. And there's that little fact that the USWNT is still ranked #1 in the world.

By filing this complaint with the EEOC, the players' hope to finally bring U.S. Soccer around to the idea that women should be paid the same as men. And with the Olympics coming up this summer, and USWNT the reigning gold medal winner, it seems like it's probably in U.S. Soccer's best interests to give the women what they want.